Review: Bionicle Heroes

I didn’t know anything about Bionicle Heroes when it first passed my eyes. All I saw was a LEGO symbol – a symbol synonymous with one sort of game: no voice acting, stupidly long linear levels and multiple plays of the same level. After playing BH, it holds up to this branding well.

As far as is ascertainable without investigating the Bionicle world, you play an androgynous ‘freak’. This ‘freak’ can switch persona with a simple change of its LEGO head giving it different powers – but this freak is pissed. Pissed at some random ‘dude’ who can create minions. This ‘dude’ hasn’t stolen the protagonist’s significant other, or an exceptional amount of wealth from some evil caper worth stealing. Thanks to the no voice acting or written story, this tale offers a mind fuck not worth thinking about.

Nevertheless, the game itself acts like a third person shooter. Each level consists of going from point A to point F via points B, C, D and E in typical LEGO sequential fashion. At each point, your goal is gain LEGO pieces by collecting or shooting enough ‘bad guys’ to fill a special meter. This power is unleashed and you proceed to the next point. Each level offers either a level or collectable to finish. Repeat 25 times, ‘story’ complete.

To be honest, the controls are the big let down here. I play the odd FPS/Third-PS, and you should get the normal forward/back/turn/strafe combo with the analog sticks. No such luck in BH, which only strafes if RT is held down. But wait, isn’t that meant to be the fire button? Alas, that is reserved for the myriad of options by ABYX. This combined with the level length and the lack if an apparent story constitutes the main flaws of BH.

On the bright side, the visuals are a credit to the game. When considering the target audience of ages 3-15, the children will like the highly coloured scenery and the responsive sounds BH offers. Unfortunately, not much comfort for hardcore players.

As a game, I can’t recommend BH. It’s dull, boring, and has no ‘yay’ factor after completing a task. In my case, due to the appalling save system the game uses, my save file corrupted at around 80% into the game. Unfortunately, looking at online forums, this problem is common. Nevertheless, with persistence (and another 8 months), I was able to complete the games achievements, totalled around 20hrs play altogether.

On the achievements side, BH is an easy completion in the grand schema of Xbox gaming. Finish the game, kill X amount of each monster and get 5 million coins – these achievements are all straight forward. The main achievement basically requires 100% completion – thus needing every level to be played again (once all the upgrades have been obtained) to get every special item in each level (~9/level), and finish the level with a gold medal (all special items, lots of LEGO pieces). This type of collection achievement is also detriment to the LEGO games.

Bionicle Heroes – one for the kids.

borandi